Category: Politics

George Soros finds the 2016 election as surreal as many of his fellow Americans. The Republican front-runner holds positions such as forcing Mexico to pay for a wall, placing a ban on Muslim immigration, and forcing Muslims to wear special IDs. Political commentators across the country cannot resist engaging in Godwin’s law and comparing reality TV star Donald Trump to a former German dictator. Soros, who has donated several million dollars to the campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to take the election more seriously when Trump won the Indiana primaries.

Despite the fear over Trump winning the presidential election, likely Democratic voters do not seem to have the enthusiasm that Republicans supporting Trump have. None of the Democratic presidential debate gained the audience that the Republican debates had, and a smaller percentage of likely voters head to the polls in the primaries. Although Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee, Sanders could still win the popular vote as the California primary has yet to be held.

Soros chose not to donate to any Democratic campaign in 2008 or 2012 because he failed to influence the 2004 election of George W. Bush. Many Democratic candidates attempted to gain his support unsuccessfully during these campaign years. Markedly different circumstances mark 2012, however. China and Europe may be on the brink of another economic collapse that could send the world back into the Great Recession. The Great Recession occurred after the housing market collapsed, and it was eased when the federal government forced the banks to take millions of dollars. The phrase “too big to fail” entered the American lexicon at this time.

As the possibility of a Republican nomination for Donald Trump or Ted Cruz becomes more real every day, the right wing has been bubbling with conspiracy theories about secret liberal-funded Republican campaigns designed to knock Trump and Cruz out of the running before either one gets a chance to go up against the Democratic nominee in November. One of the main theories currently making the rounds is that liberal billionaire investor George Soros on politifact is funding Ohio governor John Kasich’s campaign for the Republican nomination.

A series of ads which are running in Wisconsin on http://www.marketwatch.com/story/george-soros-heres-my-plan-to-solve-the-asylum-chaos-2015-09-29 ahead of that state’s February 5th primary have directly claimed that Soros is pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Kasich campaign. Linked to the Super PAC backing Ted Cruz, the ads even show photos of Kasich and Soros together. Several blogs have picked up on this theory, with DCClothesline.com claiming that Soros is controlling a network of millionaires to back Kasich’s run.

The Real Facts

Political experts have been quick to point out the ridiculousness of this theory. Since there is no maximum limit for donations to Super PACs, it would not be against the law for George Soros to donate any amount of money to the Kasich campaign. Therefore, he would have absolutely nothing to hide no matter how much money he put into the campaign. There would be no reason to utilize a shadowy network of investors when he could legally donate the funds himself.

All one has to do is take a look at the campaign records to see that George Soros has not donated one cent to the Kasich campaign. He is on record as having donated $7 million to the campaign of Hillary Clinton, plus $1 million to an organization which funds research against Republican candidates. There are no records of any donations to the Kasich campaign. Since all donations are recorded and on public record, this can be treated as fact.

Of all the contributors to the Kasich campaign, only two have past professional connections to George Soros on latino.foxnews. Both of these individuals have long histories of conservative support, and their collective donation of under $700,000 in no way supports the vast conspiracy theory the right wing claims.

The Theory Crumbles

As the theory presented on opensocietyfoundations.org by the Cruz campaign continues to crumble, several television stations and at least one radio station have pulled the accusatory ads. Since there is direct proof that Santos has not donated directly to Kasich, it is known that at least one of the accusations put forward in the ads is a blatant falsehood. Plus, with the two donators in question having conservative histories and minimal donation amounts, the theory that they are being controlled by Santos is just not supported by the facts.

With his long history of liberal support, George Santos is clearly backing Hillary Clinton according to public campaign donation records. Any claims that he is masterminding a shadowy group of John Kasich investors can be looked at as false.